Gateshead St. Mary was a large parish, serving residents of Gateshead, Gateshead Fell, Heworth, Ayton or Eighton Banks in Lamesley parish, and parts of Newcastle just across the river.

Stockton St. Thomas burials 1762-1797
3,550 burials at Stockton St. Thomas, 1762-1797. Most burials name the spouse of a deceased woman, the parents of dead children, or the occupation of a deceased man. Some burials list the cause of death if it was dramatic or somehow out of the ordinary. Some examples:

Great Stainton baptisms & burials 1762-1855
At Great Stainton, also known as Stainton-le-Street, from the Bishop’s Transcript with extensive cross-checking against the original parish register, plus some missing records added from the register:

366 baptisms 1762 to 1855

148 burials June 1762- April 1854

The Stainton register was a mess. Especially in the 1760s-1790s, it seemed to have had numerous baptisms recorded on scraps of paper that were then stuck into the register. We found several baptisms in the Bishop’s Transcript that could not be found in the original register, leading us to assume they were lost from the original register after the Bishop’s Transcript was made. This parish, in Stockton district, served residents of Elstob, Bishopton, Aycliffe, Woodham, and of course Stainton-le-Street. A sample baptism from the detail-rich period:

92 burials at Durham St. Nicholas 1813-1818, from the Bishop’s Transcript. Occasionally the clerk included parents or occupations for the deceased. St. Nicholas included Claypath, the House of Corrections, and the Workhouse.

Croxdale baptisms 1787-1812 & marriages 1798-1812
From Croxdale St. Bartholomew, in Durham district, serving Croxdale and the adjacent parishes of Brancepeth, Bishop Middleham and Kirk Merrington:
25 marriages 1798-1812, including witnesses, from the parish register
176 baptisms 1787-1812, from the Bishop’s Transcript and the parish register. Here’s one from a large family:

22 Jan 1804 Stephen Greenwell, born 26-Dec 1803, 11th son of William Greenwell (native of Merrington) by his wife Mary Sedgewick (native of St. Andrew, Auckland)

Croxdale is not indexed by the IGI, so may provide some new discoveries for researchers.

Durham St. Giles baptisms & burials 1813-1818
237 baptisms and 191 burials at Durham St. Giles from 1813 to the end of 1818, from the Bishop’s Transcript. In 1818, for some reason, the clerk returned to the old practice of listing a child’s parents in a burial, and the spouse of a deceased woman, plus some occupations. For example:

Burials and baptisms here included residents of St. Oswald, St. Nicholas, Milburn Gate, Framwellgate, and North Bailey. There were several births to women in the House of Correction (gaol), and parents from places as far-flung as Ireland (a soldier in the 4th Irish Dragoons) and a silkweaver from Glasgow, Scotland.

Darlington burials 1798-1812
1,848 burials at Darlington St. Cuthbert’s in the detail-rich period of 1798 to the end of 1812, from the Bishop’s Transcript. You can expect to discover the parents of deceased children, mother’s maiden surnames, married women’s maiden surnames, and much more. Some examples:

There were several epidemics in this period of smallpox, scarlet fever, measles, and whooping cough, which killed many children, but the most frequently stated cause of death was “decline”, which covered any wasting disease, most often probably consumption (tuberculosis). “Convulsions” was cited as the cause of death for many infants. There are also frequent cases of apoplexy, consumption, dropsy, fever, childbirth, and a few cases of accidents, burnings, drownings, suicide, intemperance, hydrocephalus, and the unpleasant-sounding “worm fever”.

Hamsterley burials 1813-1819
115 burials at Hamsterley St James 1813-1819, from the Bishop’s Transcript. The clerk was kind enough to continue the practice of including the occupations of deceased men, the parents of deceased children, and husbands of deceased women. For example:

These have actually been online for a few weeks, but we forgot to announce them!

Ryton baptisms 1640-1681 updated
Replaced the baptism index for Ryton Holy Cross 1640-1681 will full entries, so the details of those 3,062 baptisms are now instantly available. Added 4 newly found baptisms in this period.